1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a security management technique of network devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is required to manage devices such as printers in terms of security control, and it is demanded to not only manage users of the devices using IDs and to record logs, but also to reliably record operation records of respective users.
Conventionally, as a saving method of operation records of users in a system that manages devices, a method of appending job data to an operation log is adopted. Furthermore, a method of restricting device operations of devices by appending a video acquired by sensing an image of each operator to the operation log is also adopted. Such a device management method is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-44777.
However, with the above conventional methods, the following problems are posed. When it becomes possible to use devices even if an operation record is not recorded by an image sensing device, the operation record cannot act as any deterrence as a security function.
In a system that restricts the use of devices based on the operation record of an image sensing device, if the image sensing device malfunctions, all functions are uniformly restricted including those which do not require any operation record based on an administrator's decision, and devices to be managed can no longer be used. For specific users, image sensing of the operation records by the image sensing device is not required in some cases. Even in such cases, the use of devices is uniformly restricted at the time of a malfunction of the image sensing device. Users who are originally free from any influence cannot use devices due to the malfunction of the image sensing device.
Furthermore, it is difficult for each user or administrator to identify which of a device, image sensing device, and storage device that stores sensed image data has malfunctioned, resulting in poor convenience of users.